The mountains are shadowed, and the road is long and obstructed.
It rained just now, and the official road that had been in disrepair was full of potholes. A carriage rumbled past, and the wheels were splashed with mud spots of various sizes, which made the body more embarrassed. A tall horse led the way, and all of them were Lianjiazi, all rushing on their way without looking sideways.
In the car sat a wealthy old lady who was dozing off. Next to it was a sixteen- or seventeen-year-old girl with a pair of flat buns on her head and a goose-yellow skirt. A small face of Bai Shengsheng appeared under the broken hair, which seemed to be the charming little girl beside the old lady.
But if you look closely, you will find that the girl's sitting posture is extremely upright. She closed her eyes slightly, not knowing what she was thinking about, and there was an aura of killing between her brows.
It really does not look like a girl after combing the "girl".
In this line, it is Mrs. Wang and Lian Zhou Fei and Li Sheng's disciples.
The last letter from Mrs. Wang's missing son said that they had arrived near Dongting, where there was a martial arts family named "Huojiabao" in Yueyang City.
Huo Shanlin, the old owner of the Huo family, was once a famous and respected legend in the world, and his legs were unparalleled in the world. In the early years, when the old village owner of the forty-eight villages was alive, the two had a friendship of eight worship.
The reason why Li Jinrong asked Zhou Fei and Li Sheng to accompany her was because she wanted to take advantage of the thinness of the two families to ask Huo Jiabao to help when searching for people.
The pawnshops in the town had already prepared carriages and horses for them. Although there were many bandits in the mountains and forests, they were mostly people who bullied the soft and were afraid of the hard. Seeing that they didn’t seem to be easy to mess with, they didn’t dare to rashly attack. In addition, with the coffin on the side, halfway through the robbery, it would be unlucky to find a dead person again, so there were few people disturbed along the way, and the journey went smoothly.
As soon as he left the boundary of Shuzhong, Zhou Fei gradually lost interest in the scenery along the way.
The further north you go, the more depressed the village becomes. Sometimes you can’t see a single family even after walking all day. The official roads are getting bumpier and bumpier. The stations along the way are like ghost houses. There is more popularity, but popularity is not very popular. The small officials in the city gate are exploited layer by layer, and they have to repeatedly check in and out. Sitting in the carriage, you can often hear the people who can’t enter the city and the city guards arguing and crying. upset.
Zhou Fei didn't even look outside. She closed her eyes in the carriage to rest her mind and rehearsed in her mind the nine-style snowbreaker that Li Jinrong passed on that day—this was taught to her by Mr. Yu. Buddhists have a "shut up mantra". Shamelessly copied it, and gave himself a name for this weird practice method, called "Close Eyes Zen".
There are so many old things about Yu, she thinks she is noisy, stupid, sloppy, thinks that the things she has used are not put back in their original places, and refuses to let her dance knives and guns in the river, saying that she is afraid of being stupid by her. Now, seeing too much mediocrity like Zhou Fei can easily hurt his old man's brain...
Therefore, every time Zhou Fei encountered a bottleneck and was trapped in the heart of the river, Lao Yu asked her to sit on the side and close her eyes to meditate, repeating every move in her mind.
But kung fu is practiced one by one. I have never heard of anyone who came up with kung fu. Zhou Fei discussed it with him, made sense, and skipped her feet, so she was ignored.
Yu Lao Quede was smoking, and every time he took advantage of the meal, he hugged two chicken legs, chewing with his big mouth, and scolding the hungry Zhou Fei across the water.
Over time, Zhou Fei had no choice but to get rid of distracting thoughts and think hard. Gradually, she discovered that when a person is free from internal and external disturbances and distractions, she will enter a very mysterious state, where she can really think and form. thought in mind. And the moves from closed-eye meditation can be used naturally when trying out, and they are no worse than practicing by yourself.
At the beginning, Zhou Fei could only enter this state of meditation in a place where no one was disturbed, such as Xi Mo Jiang Xin. After getting used to it, she was able to focus her mind and practice closed-eye meditation at any time.
Just when there was a violent snowstorm in her mind, suddenly, there was a heart-piercing dog barking outside, the driver made a long whistle, and the carriage stopped suddenly.
Zhou Fei opened her eyes abruptly, and the knife light flashed like a sharp blade between her eyebrows, and immediately disappeared into her eyebrows. Then, she came back to her senses, stretched out her hand to raise the curtain of the car a little bit, and saw that there was a stumbling line blocking the road in front of her.
The one who led the way was Deng Zhen, the senior elder brother of the Xiaoxiang School, who was very good at riding... Of course, it was fine if he was not very good. In the air, like a joke, the person who can get caught by this thing is designated as blind.
As soon as Senior Brother Deng pulled the reins, before he could get off the horse to check, five or six bony wolf dogs rushed out from the side of the road, roaring at them with bulging eyes, followed by several villagers, mostly young and middle-aged men. There were also two sturdy strong women, carrying kitchen knives and sticks, and one carrying a long bench, staring at them with hatred.
The two sides stared at each other for a moment. Deng Zhen came back to his senses, dismounted from his horse and clasped his fists, and said, "I'm waiting for the escort of my old lady to return to my hometown. I'm going to a precious place. I don't know which taboo I have committed?"
The man in the lead looked at the saber on his waist and asked in a fierce tone: "Old lady? How old is the old lady? Call it out and see!"
Deng Zhen frowned and said, "You are so rude!"
The man said loudly: "How do I know that you are not those thieves who robbed their homes?"
Although Deng Zhen and others are from Jianghu, the Xiaoxiang faction is a sword faction, specializing in bamboo and beautiful men. Even if they had to escape from the world and enter Shu, they did not lose their elegance. No matter how they looked, they looked like a group of young masters. As a robber, Deng Zhen was about to be angry, suspecting that this group of swindlers came here specifically to corrupt people.
Li Sheng frowned slightly, looking at the dilapidated village in front of him thoughtfully.
Zhou Fei looked back at Mrs. Wang, only to see her rubbing her cane and whispering: "This place is only a day's journey from Yueyang, and Huojiabao is nearby, how can there be thieves running rampant? A Fei, help me down to see Look."
A few villagers only met in front of the group of people suddenly respectfully separated from each other, and a little girl in the back helped an old lady walk out slowly. , her eyes swept over, and the woman who carried the bench immediately put down the lame bench in embarrassment.
The old woman was probably in her prime, with a kind face that made people want to throw herself on her knee and cry in grievance. She walked to the villagers step by step, as if still breathing, and asked Said: "A few folks, the old man looks like a strongman who robbed his house?"
Half an hour later, Madam Wang leaned on her face and led Zhou Fei and the others into the village safely.
Several big wolf dogs were tied up. The leading man was Lizheng in the village. After several turmoils, Lizheng was no longer in charge, and he led the crowd to barely make a living.
While walking there, he said: "We are all grass and trees now. Those thieves have come too frequently these days, scraping the ground three feet, there is really no way."
While speaking, there was a cry not far away. Zhou Fei looked up and saw a tattered straw mat in front of the house, wrapped in a young man with long hands and feet, a tall man. , the straw mat couldn't wrap it, his head and feet were exposed, his face was no longer visible, his head was deformed by a blunt object shot, covered with dried blood, a mess, an old lady cried loudly, While flushing the blood from the dead body with water in a wooden basin.
Mrs. Wang went out in person at her age, and it was also because of her son. Seeing this scene, she was almost touched by the scene.
"It's okay to just take things, but they don't let anyone go," Li was looking at the corpse on the ground and wanted to comfort the old woman, but he also knew in his heart that the old woman was nothing. He hoped for life, what he said was all nonsense, so he swallowed all the words, and said to Deng Zhen next to him, "His daughter-in-law is still my master's marriage, and it took only half a year to get married, so that the thief wanted to rob him, he... This old lady, we have delayed your trip. Now that it is getting late, there may not be a place to stay if we go further. Why don't we take a rest day here, and then leave tomorrow, and we will be able to enter Yueyang City in the evening. "
Mrs. Wang had no objection, and asked the disciples to give them money for food and lodging. They were receiving it. She said too much. Poor, and the dead can't even afford a thin coffin, how can he still have the strength to talk about ambition
Lizheng is a man of five big and three rough, thinking about himself as poor and short-minded, he can't help but feel ashamed, sadness comes from it, and tears stand there.
Zhou Fei and the others stayed in the village that night. They ate something hastily that night, and all the disciples gathered in Madam Wang's house.
Senior Brother Deng Zhen said: "Miss, I think this is a bit weird, have you seen the young man's body? There are bones on the head, but it's not a melon, it's not so easy to rot, and ordinary manpower may not be able to shoot his head. If you do that, you have to train a family, and it's not an ordinary trainer. If there are such a group of gangsters with strong martial arts on the side of the couch, why does Huojiabao ignore it? "
Mrs. Wang put her old hands on the small brazier, and roasted them with a little firelight. She heard the words and nodded slowly. Seeing that Li Sheng was about to speak, she asked, "What do you want to say?"
Li Sheng frowned: "I'm thinking, no matter how busy we are, we wouldn't be mistaken for robbery? Why were they so vigilant at first, if not..."
Zhou Fei glanced at him, and she actually noticed it, but she didn't have the habit of being a standout. No one mentioned it, and she didn't say anything. After hearing what Li Sheng said, she nodded slightly.
Madam Wang said to Li Sheng in a warm voice, "It's okay, you say it."
"I see that most of the villagers walk heavily, their breath is vain, and their expressions of grief and anger don't seem to be fake," Li Sheng said, "If they hadn't lied, would those so-called 'thieves'... Are there similarities?"
Li Sheng said it very euphemistically, but when he said a word, the disciples were still silent for a while.
They are not ordinary robbers, and they have similarities with them, that is, the Jianghu sect. In this area, there is only Huojiabao.
Huojiabao and Li Laozhai's eight-bait friendship, Li Sheng's suspicions are actually more or less in everyone's heart, but it's not easy to mention it in front of Li Sheng and Zhou Fei.
Madam Wang curled her fingers and said in a low voice, "Let me think about it, you have been traveling for days and rest early, but you should be more alert at night."
The disciples were just as expected, and right at this moment, someone outside suddenly asked, "Is Miss Zhou sleeping?"
Zhou Fei was stunned for a moment, pushed the door open to greet her, and saw that the person who came was Mrs. Li Zheng—the heroic female middle school who carried the bench to rob the road at the beginning.
She didn't look so ferocious. Seeing that Zhou Fei was a girl, she didn't talk much to the old woman all the time. She felt that she was pitiful, so she specially found a thick clean quilt for her at night.
Zhou Fei was a little flattered about the special care she had received since she was a child, and hurriedly thanked her.
In this village, even the children are all yellow-faced and thin, and Mrs. Lizheng rarely sees a neat-looking girl. She likes it very much. Before leaving, she reached out and touched Zhou Fei's face and said with a smile, "Good boy."
Zhou Fei: "…"
At night, Zhou Fei tossed and turned and couldn't sleep. It wasn't because the bedding was shabby and coquettish. She suddenly felt that the mountain was not good at all. I still can't figure it out - I don't understand that there are strong people passing by from time to time, and they are so poor that they don't want to move to other places.
At this moment, a loud noise suddenly came from outside the window. The barking of dogs and human voices sounded together. Zhou Fei rolled over and sat up and said softly, "Mother Wang?"
Madam Wang, who was in the room with her, had not spoken yet, the noise was getting closer, the door was pushed open, and Mrs. Lizheng rushed in in a panic and said, "Here we come again, hurry up and hide! "
After speaking, she glanced at Zhou Fei's face, picked up a man's tattered jacket, and wrapped her in it from head to toe: "Little sister, don't show your face, those bastards..."
Before she could finish a sentence, two masked men rushed into the back and shouted, "The carriage is parked in this courtyard, and the people must be here!"
Madam Lizheng gasped and turned to block the door with herself.